There’s a lot of doom and gloom going around at the moment. As the pestilence has subsided a bit, we’ve got war and famine instead. If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed and crap, it’s not your fault. But I have one key idea and two practices that may help.
The key idea:
Your experience is created by your external circumstances, and your reaction to them.
You may not be in control of the first, but you can be in control of the second, at least up to a point.
For most people there are limits; no amount of sang-froid will help in some situations, and it’s possible to be miserable in paradise.
But for most of us, most of the time, even when we are faced with circumstances beyond our control, we have some latitude around how we respond to them.
- The first rule is: whoever stays calm longest wins.
- The second rule is: focus on your area of control.
- And the third and final rule is: your negative emotional state doesn’t help anyone, even you.
Let’s imagine you’ve behaved badly (shockingly unlikely I know, but this is a thought experiment). Feeling guilty about it doesn’t affect the person you’ve wronged- but making amends might.
Or let’s imagine someone has behaved badly towards you (something everyone has experienced at some point). Being angry or miserable as a consequence doesn’t change what happened, and if the action was deliberate, it’s also helping your enemy reach their goal.
The Practices
I think we can agree that being able to control your response to circumstances is a superpower. The primary skills involved are remaining calm (i.e. controlling your state of physiological arousal), and choosing what your mind dwells on. The practices I use to develop those skills are breathing exercises and meditation.
They go together very well: a lot of breathing exercises are meditative, and a lot of meditation styles involve breath work.
Here’s a very simple example for you. It will take about a minute.
Generally speaking, when your exhale is longer than your inhale, your system calms down (i.e. it stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system). And when you are paying attention to your breath, you are by definition not paying attention to the thing that is bothering you that is beyond your control.
- Take a moment, and do one slow inhale, and then breathe out as long and slow as you can.
- Now try that again, and focus on the feeling of the inhale, and the feeling of the exhale.\
How do you feel?
Told you it was very simple!
I’ve been studying these things for a long time (I was taught my first breathing exercise in I think 1990), and I have courses on breathing and meditation. If you are already enrolled in either course, or the Solo Training course, or the Mastering the Art of Arms subscription, you already have access, so should maybe go do some practice, or skip ahead to the podcast announcement.
But if you don’t have access to the courses yet and would like to, I’ve dropped the prices to make them super-affordable. Because almost everyone is struggling with the inflation and cost of living crisis, and this is the stuff I have that is most likely to be helpful.
Meditation for Martial Artists is here: https://swordschool.teachable.com/p/meditation
The usual price is $140, but you can get it for $25 with this code: JANUARYDESTRESS
Fundamentals: Breathing is here: https://swordschool.teachable.com/p/breathing-basics
The usual price is $129 but you can get it for $25 with this code: JANUARYDESTRESS
Correct sales practice is to create a sense of scarcity to increase demand by putting a time-limit on the sale (as I usually do, because it massively increases sales), but the last thing we need right now is more scarcity, so I’m not going to. Those codes expire in about three years!
It is also normal practice to bombard you with reminders, testimonials, etc. to persuade you to part with your cash, but again it seems not a kind thing to do right now. If the courses aren’t a no-brainer purchase for you, don’t buy them.
But, for those of my readers and students currently sitting on glorious piles of cash, feel free to either pay full price, and/or buy some other courses or books of mine, I’d appreciate it.